


Strange Days

by Kat Morgan (Wren_K)



Series: Strange Days 'verse [1]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-14 03:50:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 20,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4549209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wren_K/pseuds/Kat%20Morgan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The saying goes 'curiosity killed the cat.'  Popular aphorisms remain mute on the effect of curiosity on the average JD.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The row of shabby warehouses was dark. Again. JD wove his bike through the broken blacktop silently, ignoring the prickles on the back of his neck. He didn't have to look for the shards of glass beneath the streetlight to know it would be there; he wished Karles and Vitaliy would find a less destructive way to conduct their business.

Most nights he would go out of his way to avoid the Nandier brothers and any of their customers, pedaling the long way around the warehouse three down from the one he currently called home; but tonight he felt more annoyed over the broken light than he did cautious. Legs pumping hard, he flew past the loading bay door with his head down.

Something inside the warehouse slammed against the rippled metal hard enough to buckle it outward.

JD shied away from the unexpected violence and lost his balance. He and the bike went down in a tangle that might not have been so bad had he put his energy into catching himself and not lifting his messenger bag out of harm's way. Pain exploded down his left side as various parts of his anatomy connected with the asphalt. The bicycle helmet absorbed most of the impact for his head, but the blow was still hard enough to make his vision swim.

He bit down on his lip and a string of blue words. Carefully he extracted himself from the carnage and began assessing the damage. The laptop thankfully didn't appear broken. Neither, he added after a moment's evaluation, did any bones; though his left forearm and elbow bore some impressive road rash. His ankle wobbled when he tested it, but did reluctantly support his weight.

A violent crash rattled the warehouse again. Something within shrieked; a shrill, inhuman sound that snaked icy fingers of dread into JD's brain and squeezed. Blood pounded in his ears, urging his feet to run as fast and as far as they were able. He would have listened to that primitive instinct; but at the same time it was urging flight, another, louder part of his brain – the part of his brain that was forever leading him into trouble and out of jobs – that part eyed the mangled door and wondered.

Stinging abrasions and blind terror were no match for the allure of a good mystery. JD abandoned his catalogue of hurts and examined the warehouse cargo door. The bulge created by the earlier impact had pulled one side of the roll-down door away from the steel track; the resultant gap was as wide as his palm and slightly longer than his forearm.

Hesitating just long enough to pay lip service to common sense, JD peered inside. What he saw made him gape. Two men were engaged in a life and death battle with a monstrous ivy plant. The plant appeared to be winning.

A vine – thick as JD's arm – lashed out and batted aside a tall blond man with as much effort as JD would use to shoo away a gnat. The man crashed through a table of hydroponic trays, disappearing from JD's sight in an avalanche of marijuana seedlings. The creeper lashed after him, upending a second set of plants.

The other combatant, a young black man, drew back his arm and flicked a knife toward the heart of the writhing mass of ivy, the action almost faster than JD could follow. The plant wailed, leaves quaking in pain and clearly translated rage. Three tendrils whipped toward the man, faster than anything rooted in the ground had a right to. He managed to dodge the first vine, but the second snaked around his ankle and yanked him from his feet, the third coiled around his throat and hoisted him into the air. The man dangled mid-air, both hands clutching the vine, feet kicking frantically without purchase.

JD held his breath.

A third man moved into view, rising from the floor in front of JD's spy hole. He moved unsteadily, but with determination. JD realized with a wince just what had stuck the door hard enough to dent it. The new combatant was slender with long hair. He fired three quick shots into the vine that strangled his friend. The plant shuddered, but didn’t drop the gasping man.

Heart pounding in his chest, JD was transfixed by the ridiculous spectacle. This was a bad matinee sprung to life and escaped the screen – complete with questionable special effects. He was absolutely certain that the epic battle taking place on the other side of the door could not be happening; and he was equally certain that it was. Almost unthinkingly, he drew his cell phone and hit record.

The blond man had apparently regained his sense and launched himself back into the fight, darting forward with a docked shotgun to pump round after round into the thick clump of vegetation that the vines emerged from. A stout limb swept his feet from beneath him; and followed with a brutal attempted coup-de-grace. He threw himself to one side, a hairsbreadth before the vine slammed down hard enough to shatter the concrete.

"Chris!" the only one still standing cried out. He put another round into the vine that still choked the third man.

Chris was on his feet instantly, putting some distance between himself and the flailing ivy. "I'm fine," he yelled. "Help Nathan."

While JD and the plant had been focused on Chris, Nathan had produced another knife. He was valiantly hacking away with one hand, while the other struggled to protect his vulnerable windpipe. With each slashing blow, the plant shuddered and keened.

JD was so enrapt by the battle raging inside, that he completely missed the arrival of the black Chevy until it was nearly parked on top of him. The truck came to a hard stop, doors flying open before the vehicle stopped rolling.

An imposing man dashed by wielding a chainsaw and maniacal grin with equal malice. "Make way," he bellowed unnecessarily, since the chainsaw had already delivered the same message quite effectively. He thundered past JD, saw roaring to life as he burst through the pedestrian door. The driver, wielding a saw of his own, was hot on his trail.

The third man--slighter than either of his companions but no less formidable--turned in the threshold to regard JD. His sharp green eyes caught the light unnaturally. "This matter will be resolved presently," he said in a silky accent JD couldn't place. "Were I you, I would vacate the vicinity." The green light flickered in his eyes again, so quick that JD couldn't swear he hadn't imagined it. "Sooner would be preferable." He pivoted gracefully and joined his cohorts inside.

JD stood dumbfounded for a moment. The proffered advice was humming an off-kilter ditty in his ear; he shook his head, chasing an itch he couldn't reach. He wanted to stay and--

The tuneless song changed pitch, scattering his thoughts. 

Absently, he gathered his belongings; obedience nearly shattering when he discovered that his bicycle had been on the losing side of an encounter with the over-sized truck. The urge to be elsewhere, to go to ground was growing. 

Mildly confused and frowning, though he did not know why, JD limped off into the dark, pointedly ignoring the pronounced wobble in his bike's canter.


	2. Chapter 2

Chris suppressed a grin as Buck waded deeper into the plant, swinging the chainsaw with gleeful abandon. Buck didn't care that all the fight had gone out of the vines; so long as they were still twitching, he was happy to keep swinging; though it was going to make clean-up more involved than it needed to be.

At last, deciding that the odd quiver wasn't an invitation for further destruction, Buck let the saw sputter to a stop. Dark green ichor dripped from every available surface, including the members of his team. Ezra, as usual, was spotless in a way that brought out Chris' baser impulses.

"Buck, Ezra, you're on mop-up. Josiah, I want samples. Vin, make sure none of those other trays hold any surprises." He strode across the slimy floor with as much authority as he could muster without winding up on his ass, ignoring Ezra's protests and Buck's feral grin equally. His foot bobbled once, but he caught himself without disaster.

Chris knelt in front of Nathan, ignoring the unpleasant dampness where his knees touched the floor; he hoped the lack of holes where his BDUs had already been spattered meant that there was nothing dangerous in the green goop. 

"You okay?" he asked his medic, gently but firmly pushing Nathan's hands aside to study the angry welt around his throat.

"I'll live," Nathan rasped. Chris couldn't tell if the burr in his voice was injury or emotion; from the dark glitter in his eyes, Chris was tempted to guess the latter. Still, he was satisfied that Nathan wasn't likely to keel over on him before they made it back to the infirmary.

Josiah returned to the warehouse, arms laden with the usual bits of clean-up kit. On his way past Chris he handed over a bucket and flat-bladed shovel. "A'right, Nate?" he asked.

Nathan nodded, winced at the movement, and held out his hand for the shovel. Chris pushed Nathan's hand back into his lap. "We've got this. If you absolutely have to make yourself useful, try to figure out how these idiots got their hands on an eupiu root in the first place."

Josiah gave Chris a grin and waded toward the center of the mess; delivering the rest of his supplies like a demented Santa Claus.

"So nice of you boys to make it," Chris said to Buck over the scrape and slop of clean-up. "Hope we aren't keeping you from anything important." He grinned to show there was no rancor in his jibe. 

Buck shrugged, unaffected by the friendly rebuke. "You got any idea how hard it is to find a chainsaw at one in the morning? Besides, we figured you boys could handle little ol' Seymour on your own."

"Audrey II," Nathan corrected, without looking up from the laptop.

"What?"

"Seymour grew the plant. He named it after the woman he loved, Audrey. Hence, Audrey II."

"Huh," Buck shrugged, already dismissing the musical and the conversation it had sparked. He dropped another scoop of eupiu into the bucket at his feet and leaned against his shovel. "Had a peeper," he offered, suddenly remembering the dark-haired kid he'd nearly mowed down on the way in. "Guess he's gone, huh 'siah?"

Josiah looked up from the slide he was preparing. "Not a soul about when I retrieved the buckets. Though the boy can't have gone far," a guilty flush climbed his neck, "I believe I damaged his bicycle in my haste to park."

"Think he belongs with them," Vin asked, indicating the two partial sets of remains they'd discovered amongst the carnage. He caught Chris' eye and shook his head, everything else in the building was good old Mary-Jane.

"He does not," Ezra answered Vin's question. "I --" he made a complicated gesture that encompassed his head, "took the liberty. The lad was merely a passerby, drawn to the scene by your customary subtlety."

"You let him go?" Chris snapped, regretting the tone of the question even as it left his mouth. Somehow, conversations with Ezra had a tendency to tilt dangerously in the direction of violence.

"Please," Ezra gave him a disdainful look. "I honestly feel that I should be insulted by your lack of esteem. I am hardly an amateur." He tugged the cuffs of his sleeves down and flicked away an invisible speck. "I sent him on his way with memories of an insignificant automobile collision in which he and his bicycle incurred minor damage. At the worst, he may feel the slight urge to eat his vegetables before they can return the favor for a few weeks." 

The lie dripped off his tongue like honey, flawless even without the push of will behind it. It was too risky to attempt influencing his colleagues. The memories he spun were fragile, soap-bubble realities; and these five men truly excelled at breaking fragile things -- and things that were generally believed to be unbreakable.

Then there was Chris Larabee, who possessed the strongest natural shields Ezra had ever encountered in a non-telepathic species. Ezra was fairly confident that he could batter his way past Chris' defenses, but the effort involved wouldn't leave him with anything to handle the other four. Besides, there was no benefit to making such a reckless attempt over a matter so trivial. 

"You've got no right to go mucking around inside peoples' heads," Nathan interjected himself angrily. Ezra could have kissed him, even if the argument was an old saw between the pair of them.

"Ah, the sanctimonious Dr. Jackson. You do always manage to hit your cue." Ezra grinned vexingly. "At least my method leaves him with an explanation for his injuries. Or do you truly believe it less traumatic to entirely lose a random day?"

"The Vergessen may not be perfect," Nathan shot back, the usual guilty flush creeping up his cheeks, "but it's better than believing a pack of lies."

"In my experience," Ezra's smirk took on a honed edge," people are willing to believe a variety of lies. Many they even tell themselves."

"Can it, you two," Buck said, cutting off Nathan's gathering bluster. He flipped a shovel load into his bucket hard enough to splatter. "If your mouths are working, your hands ain't. And some of us don't plan on wasting all night at this."

 

"Hot date?" Vin asked, smoothly filling the gap in conversation before the argument could reignite. 

"You know it," Buck answered, eye brows wagging in an obscenely suggestive way.

"Don't you think Rosie deserves the night off?" Vin asked with wide-eyed concern. "Carpal tunnel's no joking matter."

"Har har." Buck flicked a disarticulated vine toward Vin with the edge of his shovel. 

"Didn't you two learn your lesson with the G'zniaks," Chris scolded, wondering -- not for the first time -- how he'd managed to populate his team of alleged professionals entirely with children. "No flinging alien matter around unless it's completely inert."

"Sorry, bossman," Buck answered in a tone that was anything but apologetic. 

"Of course you are," Chris shot back.

"Fuck." The unexpected obscenity was loud enough to make the others stop their work and stare at Nathan. He pivoted the computer on his lap and hit enter. "Chris, you'd better watch this." 

The green and gray of night vision footage filled the screen, a nondescript warehouse front filled the frame. Chris did the mental calculations, estimating the camera's location across the street. There was no way to write off the surveillance as accidental. Nathan struck another key and the footage sped up.

Chris watched as on screen he approached the building flanked by Vin and Nathan; the tactical approach amusingly herky-jerky in double-time. A few seconds after they entered the building, Nathan slowed the video back to real time. A bicycle and rider appeared on screen and crashed spectacularly.

Buck bit back a sharp bark of laughter.

"Ouch," Vin said, as much in memory of his own collision with the door as in sympathy for the bicyclist.

"Where'd this come from?" Chris asked.

"Local PD," Nathan answered. "Camera's been up for about three weeks. It could help us figure out where the eupiu seeds came from. But that's not our main problem." On screen, the boy had picked himself up and was peering through the battered door with a great deal of interest. He held something up to the gap.

Nathan stopped the footage and zoomed in. He skillfully coaxed an enhancement out of the grainy image. Though quality was poor, it was clear enough to make out the cell phone in the boy's hand. From the way he held the phone, there was no doubt that he was recording the battle on the other side of the broken door.

Ezra felt an old familiar thrill tingle through him. The taste of near disaster danced on his tongue like lightening. He savored it. Suppressed instincts flared back to life. His mind worked at a blistering pace behind a face carefully schooled into just the right expression of chagrin. An impulse of kindness threatened to shatter the fragile trust he'd earned from these men, and it was the most alive he'd felt in months.

"I really miss life before fucking cell phones," Chris snarled. To Ezra, he added, "This. This is why we have protocols. Vin, Ezra -- find him."


	3. Chapter 3

JD moved through the warehouse quickly, letting his left hand brush along the pseudo-wall of boxes, crates, and shelves. He didn't actually have to rely on the guiding hand, not after four months of walking the turns and double backs; but the encounter outside had rattled him and the lead freed his mind to freak out.

The simple, but carefully constructed maze had been one of his first modifications to the space when he'd moved in. At the time, it had been a meditation on his mother and his upbringing; reenacting a ritual they’d completed countless times during his childhood. The hours of exhausting labor had been a good outlet for a grieving son. He'd never expected to actually rely on the structure for protection. He would have made it more complex, laid more than a few basic alarms in place. Maybe even something with heat behind it.

His twisted ankle protested as he hopped over a pressure plate on the floor, a few more steps traded the labyrinth for the open space that served as home. It wasn't cozy in the strictest sense of the word, but it was his. And compared to some of the places he'd lived, it was a palace. There was a locker-room in one corner, complete with showers -- a ridiculous luxury in JD’s experience. High windows and skylights let in a surprising amount of natural light. The best feature of all was the long forgotten manhole cover set in the floor; it had been welded shut decades ago and warehouse built over it. The tunnel beneath carried, among other easily pirateable utilities, the city's trunk line.

This was home. Or as close to home as a place could be in the long months since his mother's death.

He would miss it terribly.

JD's mind raced furiously; divided between planning his flight and turning over the scene he had witnessed. His attention further split as he marveled over the creature he'd glimpsed through the broken door, and cursed his luck at winding up on one seriously scary radar. 

But... an inkling of hope whispered in his heart, the man with the green eyes had let him go. Maybe they weren't interested in him, maybe he could just hunker down and –

The faint tune in his head reached a jarring crescendo; scattering his thoughts and setting his heart to thumping once more.

He shook off the panic; banishing the anxiety to a dark corner of his mind where it rattled about, putting an urgency into his movements. JD pulled a long breath, forcing his heart to slow. This wasn't the first place he'd abandoned in a rush; he knew the proper order of things, if he could just concentrate. The song receded once again into a quiet hum on the edge of his consciousness.

JD shook off the strange sensation, and strode to his work station with business-like intent. It only took a moment to awaken the bank of computers from their idle status. The cool glow from half a dozen monitors brightened as the systems came online. There wasn't time to take everything; and even if there was, JD didn't have a way to move it all. He let his hands pass mournfully across the station, and then set about limiting his loss the best he could.

With the backups underway, pulling his most vital files and programs to the hard drives nestled inside a small metal briefcase; JD turned his attention to his physical possessions.

He tossed the messenger bag on the bed and set to gathering those things he couldn't bear to leave behind. There were the obvious mementos: the ornately carved cube of dense, black metal that had been his mother’s most treasured possession; the thick notebook of her writings and drawings; and a battered copy of "From Earth to the Moon." He wrapped the three items in a favorite shirt and then tucked the bundle into the messenger bag with his laptop.

He took the bag over to the manhole cover and pried the heavy disk free with a length of rebar he kept on hand for that task. JD climbed down into the tunnel below. Strapped to one leg of the ladder by Velcro was a black light, JD flipped it on. Reactive paint flared to life, illuminating the area around the ladder with a vibrant blue glow. 

Tucked between the ladder and the tunnel wall was a fair-sized bundle wrapped in a garbage bag to protect the contents from the dank and any vermin looking for a snack. JD tore away the plastic, revealing a small duffle bag. He didn't bother to check the contents, inside he would find a few changes of clothes, most of his life-savings, and enough water and food to sustain him if he had to hide out for a few days. He left the duffle and the messenger bag at the base of the ladder and ascended to check on his download.

The progress bar happily declared forty percent completion, ticking downwards toward fifteen minutes. JD didn't even see it. A tantalizing alert on the central monitor transfixed him:

 NEW SYSTEM FOUND

It could only belong to the terrifying men in the dark SUV; the ones who ran around fighting monstrous plants and swinging chainsaws about; the ones who could embed an order into his mind with a mere glance. As soon as JD recognized the exchange for what it had been, the song shattered under his scrutiny. 

That knowledge should have spurred his flight faster, but his curiosity was stronger. It overrode his common sense and a lifetime of his mother's lessons. She'd have boxed his ears had she witnessed this foolishness.

His hands flickered across the keyboard; fingers dancing with precise lightness. It didn't take long to trace the signal, getting the flavor of its structure as he worried the edges. There was a flaw in their security -- they'd hacked the police surveillance, a system JD had infiltrated weeks ago. He followed the flow of information back, sending his most subtle codes to create footholds as he went. 

The flaw became a crack. JD teased it open; rerouting the flow of information through his own servers before forwarding it on to its original destination -- now with hitchhikers. He owned the laptop in a matter of minutes, and couldn't believe his luck when he found the remote connection to their mainframe. He smiled wickedly, god bless poor protocol. 

The OS was a marvel; intuitive, almost organic in its construction, and wholly unlike anything JD had ever encountered. He worked his way into the system, hiding behind the remote link as far as he could; then taking it at angles, never moving forward directly. He pulled resources from his backup to begin mirroring the data to his own drives. 

Oblivious to the minutes ticking by, JD sank deeper and deeper into the code.


	4. Chapter 4

The lock was Vin's first hint that the kid from the video was no mere passer-by; the simple faceplate Ezra removed revealed an orderly nest of wires and circuits. Though in retrospect his first clue should have been Ezra's aggressive 'everything's fine' attitude. The fact that it took Ezra a full minute to by-pass the lock was unprecedented in Vin's experience. In the faint castoff glow from the task-light he could read the concentration and triumph in Ezra's brief grin as the magnetic lock released. Vin rolled his eyes.

The door swung silently inward and the pair crept into the dark warehouse beyond. Inside, they paused to pull on night-vision goggles, redrafting the world in green and black. Vin carefully sidestepped the bicycle abandoned in the middle of the path and studied their surroundings. Shelves and crates and miscellaneous boxes appeared to have been meticulously arranged into makeshift walls, a maze he realized. Ezra took the discovery with poorly feigned mild surprise. 

They found the first device at the end of the first aisle of shelves. It set Vin's teeth on edge; even after a brief examination revealed it to be a passive laser-eye of the sort that greeted convenience store customers the world over. It didn't mean the next one would be harmless; but it was, as was the one after that. The fourth one was shaped like a frog, and Vin knew with a certainty that made him want to laugh, that if he broke the invisible beam with his leg, that the resin toad would croak out a warning. The flash of humor relaxed him a fraction; he had a feel for their quarry now. Between the maze-like structure and the alarms, it would be easy to write the boy off as paranoid, maybe a conspiracy freak; but Vin didn't think that handle fit. For one, Ezra hadn't picked up on anything like that during their encounter. Of course, he hadn't mentioned a freaking maze either.

Suspicions clicked into place, and a theory he hadn't been aware of entertaining, sprang fully-formed into Vin's mind. He didn't know how Ezra's ability worked; at most the man would admit to a limited empathy and the memory trick. Vin had his doubts about Ezra's supposed limitations; he'd seen him work after all. And all of this -- the maze, the alarms, the overly complex keypad entry on the door of a rundown warehouse... this was a lot to conceal from someone who damned good at reading even casual strangers. 

He edged through a narrow point between a crate of novelty eyewear and an unsteady shelving unit, pausing to show Ezra where to place his feet through the tricky parts. Up ahead, a patch of light spilled through a break in the wall and Vin could sense an open space beyond it. Vin stepped forward and then hesitated, the musings from before nagged at him. Pivoting, so that he was right in Ezra's space, Vin asked in a nearly silent whisper, "What is he?"

"Beg pardon?" Ezra managed to fit an amazing amount of affront into a whisper.

Vin curled his fingers around his partner's bicep, practically forcing the other man to look him in the eye. His theories and suspicions blazed at the front of his mind. "Look around, Ez. I don't think the kid hid all of this from you; I think you hid this from Chris." 

"Mr. Tanner -"

Vin thought he caught an edge of something ragged and honest in Ezra's voice; but then green light flickered in his eyes, and Vin broke eye contact before he was bespelled. 

"I get it," Vin said, backing off a half step; he hadn't meant to corner Ezra, but he needed to know what could be waiting beyond the wall. Ezra never talked about his arrangement with the Marshals, but Vin had eyes. He cast aside the dozens of questions clamoring for answers and limited himself to the one that actually mattered. "Is he dangerous?"

"No," Ezra answered, uncharacteristically direct. "I'd stake my life on it."

"You're betting mine too," Vin shot back, though he relaxed a fraction. While he was certain that Ezra had lied about the kid they were tailing, he didn't think the man would conceal anything dangerous.

Vin eased forward through the shadows, silently transitioning from the confines of the labyrinth to the large open space beyond. Their target sat, enrapt, before a curved wall of computer monitors. The low light fell around him like a cool aura. Vin was surprised at how young he appeared. He studied the screen intently; oblivious to anything that wasn't pixilated.

Vin took another step forward, bringing himself properly into the room. The floor underfoot shifted and clicked audibly. All hell broke loose around him. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of pennies cascaded down, pelting the concrete in a surprising cacophony. The kid's head snapped up at the first sound. His eyes, when they met Vin's, were huge and round. The frozen shock lasted just long enough to register and then the kid was in motion.

One hand slammed a heavy metal case shut, while the other lashed out toward a comically large red button mounted on top of the desk. 

Vin reacted on instinct and flung himself backward toward Ezra. His momentum carried them both tumbling down and away from the expected blast; a blast that did not arrive.

"Are you quite comfortable," Ezra asked in a razor sharp tone once it became obvious that they weren't going to blow up. 

Vin grunted a less than polite response and got up. He re-breeched the living space, no less cautious the second time. The kid was gone. 

"Thought you said he was harmless," Vin said, carefully sweeping the edges of the room.

"And here we stand, unharmed," Ezra answered dryly. "More imperiled by your enthusiasm than Mister Dunne's paranoia." 

"Dunne?"

Ezra ignored the sharp question, moving forward to examine the recently abandoned work station. The monitors had gone black, stealing their faint light from the scene. "I believe our young friend was activating an electromagnetic device. No doubt designed for unexpected guests such as ourselves."

"Maybe we should have called first," Vin countered, his search bringing him to the 'bedroom' area, so denoted by the presence of a mattress more than any classic amenities. A round hole gaped in the floor, nearby was a heavy, stamped metal disc. Vin whistled softly, bringing Ezra over to his location. They studied the manhole for a long moment, running the tactics involved in descending into the darkness. Wordlessly they brought their hands up for a decisive game of Rock-Paper-Scissors. Ezra's paper covered Vin's rock.

Vin scowled at Ezra, but couldn't figure how the conman could game such a simple exercise. Even if he did win nine out of ten throws. He lowered himself into the dark, praying that Ezra's read on the kid -- Dunne, and Ezra was crazy if he thought Vin had forgotten that slip -- was correct. The tunnel was dank, but empty. Vin whistled again for Ezra to join him. He tried to tell himself he wasn't petty enough to enjoy the litany of complaints that Ezra launched before his feet even touched the bottom.

Vin drew his gun, using the flashlight mounted along the barrel as a guide.

"Mister Tanner, is that necessary?" Ezra asked, trying for bored rather than aghast. "I can assure you; I found no danger within the boy."

"Don't plan to use it on him, but if we go back for regular flashlights, he's gone."

"I do believe that may be the case regardless. Surely he is more familiar with these tunnels than are we."

"Maybe," Vin agreed, "maybe not." He ran the flashlight over the walls; the aged brick had a clear, shiny coating in areas. "C'mon, I think he went this way."


	5. Chapter 5

JD sat on the edge of the low wall and eased himself down, bypassing the short ladder that he knew his ankle wouldn't manage. He pushed off and dropped the last few inches, landing in the fetid storm water with a hop and a grimace. He clenched his teeth around a whimper of pain, afraid that a scream lurked behind even the smallest sound. His ankle, already injured in the bicycle crash, had crunched and rolled alarmingly at the bottom of the ladder when he'd flung himself from his bedroom to the darkness below.

He sagged against the wall he'd just descended, wasting precious seconds to regroup. The cool blue glow from the reactive paint was starting to give him a headache. He hadn't pictured it like this when he'd plotted his escape route; limping through the dark, cold and exhausted. The duffle bag containing his clothes and, more importantly, his money, was gone -- abandoned almost straight away. The bag had proven to be too cumbersome, next time he would know to use a backpack. JD shuddered a little at the thought of there being a next time. 

He pushed off the wall, hobbling forward again. The messenger bag thumped awkwardly against his thigh, the hard edge of his laptop worrying at what JD suspected would be a spectacular bruise. He ignored it and focused on the next step, and that successfully accomplished, the one after that. He wasn't going to get the chance to learn from his mistakes if he didn't focus on putting some distance between himself and the men from the warehouse.

The blue florescence that surrounded him was fading. JD stared at the ultra-violet light wand in his hand, puzzled. The light was still working; it was just being replaced with a yellow light source that was moving closer. 

"Damn it," he swore under his breath and redoubled his efforts. The chamber he'd just entered was formed at the point where three of the utility tunnels met. His route followed the left hand tunnel, but his pursuers had been able to follow far more quickly than he'd anticipated. Had they discovered the trick with the paint, or were they following him? There was one way to find out. JD lurched forward hurriedly, ignoring the fire that consumed his leg. He reached the tunnel that led to the right, pressed his fingers firmly against the brickwork and shut out the light.

 

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

 

There were certain universal absolutes that had followed Ezra literally from one side of the galaxy to the other. None had proved more steadfast than the simple tenet that no good deed was allowed to go unpunished. Ever. 

Ezra, when faced with almost blinding innocence, had forgotten that guiding axiom; and here he was skulking through catacombs attempting to rectify an action that some rebellious part of him even now insisted was -- Mecre, help him -- the right thing to do. He slouched inward, still gawping at his own sentimentality. When he'd read the young man, Ezra had anticipated nothing more than to encourage a curious contemporary to go about his business; the last thing he'd expected was to touch a mind that was clearly unearthly, and -- unless he missed his mark -- wholly ignorant of its own nature.

Unthinking, Ezra had acted on an empathetic impulse and imperiled everything. When Larabee reported that he'd concealed an incursion -- concealed was too passive a word for what he had done, even abetted fell short of describing the foolishness of his actions. When word reached the Directors of what he'd done; not even Orin Travis' considerable influence could protect him.

He'd lose his parole. Ezra's chest tightened, remembering the helpless feeling of being penned in by solid walls; endless hours broken only by the soulless automaton that delivered his meals, his captors unwilling to provide the slightest opportunity for Ezra to ply his gifts.

"Hold up," Vin said, his quiet voice cutting through Ezra's welling panic attack. He laid his hand along Ezra's forearm; and like a gust of cool wind through autumn leaves, his touch sent Ezra's dizzying thoughts spinning away into ether. 

If Vin noticed that his companion was quietly going out of his mind, he gave no indication. Instead he crouched and frowned at the path ahead. They'd come to a large chamber that split into three tunnels at the far end. The glossy patches that he'd been following continued forward into the passage on the left, but something felt off. 

Vin sat back on his heels and ran his flashlight over the scene again. His eyes tracked the light, trying not to see anything specific, but instead let the details assert themselves. It took two passes of the light before his brain tripped over the obvious answer. Vin shimmied down the ladder without a word, splashing in the shin deep storm water at the base without a second thought.

Ezra had second thoughts; and finding the results unfavorable, went back for thirds. "Aw hell," he groaned and followed Vin with reluctance. Something furry and limp floated by. Ezra drew back, horrified and weirdly grateful to have such a petty vexation. He quickened his pace as much as the perilous footing would allow.

He caught up to Vin, who had stopped a few yards back from the tunnel entrances, slowly flicking the flashlight between the two outside passages.

"What do you see," Ezra asked, trusting Vin's skills in matters of tracking implicitly. 

"Splashes," Vin murmured. With the flashlight he indicated irregular splotches on the bricks of the right hand tunnel and then their absence at the mouth of the left tunnel. Once it was pointed out, Ezra could plainly see where someone had clambered into the mouth of the far right passage.

"Come on," Vin said, striding forward with urgency. "He's close."

Close turned out to be less than a dozen yards along the tunnel. The boy was limping badly, leaning heavily on the curved wall for support. When the beam of the flashlight illuminated the confined space, he half turned, eyes glittering hugely. He made a small, frustrated sound and turned away from them. It was a move of desperation. He took three further steps before the injured leg collapsed traitorously beneath him.

Vin and Ezra were on him before he had a chance to do more than flail wildly in ineffectual defense. The tracker dropped to his knees behind the kid and caught his arms, drawing them back and pinning him. "Ezra," Vin hissed, struggling to keep his grip. 

Ezra grabbed his chin, turning the boy's face up to meet his. Ezra hated using his gift this way; there was no subtlety in inflicting his will upon another by force. The kid had his eyes clenched tightly shut, and Ezra was almost shocked into laughter. So he'd figured out what had happened during their first encounter. That was interesting; but a matter for another time. 

"Mister Dunne." 

Hazel eyes snapped open, shocked at hearing his name. The damage was done, his gaze met Ezra's. The fight eased from his clenched body as Ezra pushed his will into the stare. Green light glittered brightly in Ezra's eyes. "Things are quite all right now. All of this is just a bad memory." The song hummed through Ezra's bones, a melody shared once more between them. Ezra poured more power into the connection. "You are actually resting in a soft feather bed. Your wounds have all been tended; in fact, you can hardly feel them now. Your only concern is to sleep and regain your strength."

"Not real," JD murmured, around a drowsy yawn.

"No," Ezra agreed, slumping wearily. "I wish it were."


	6. Chapter 6

   
Buck was keeping busy in the maintenance bay of the garage when the outstanding squad members pulled into the empty parking space near the elevator. He stepped over the dismantled pieces of chainsaw that had mostly been cleared of coagulated sap and shut off the blaring radio on the way over to greet Vin and Ezra. His friendly wave of hello turned into a two-handed nose grasp when they exited the SUV.

"Oughh! You two are riper 'n a polecat farting contest." Behind his hands, Buck pulled an impressive number of faces that all roughly meant 'pee-u.'

"Had a little trouble," Vin said, his tone covering the range of possibilities between 'stubbed my toe on a rock' and 'accidentally released Cthulhu -- don't bother with plans for Thursday.'

"You two are foul," Buck said, still hiding behind one hand. The other ran lovingly along the front quarter panel of the SUV. "Darlin', what'd they do to you?"

"It’s fine, Buck."

There was a warning in Vin's voice that made Buck pause and take stock; first of Vin, and then Ezra. "You okay, Ezra?" he asked, flipping the switch from jibe to concern without missing a beat.

Ezra answered with a small tight nod, his face schooled into bland mask that mostly concealed the faint lines of worry and headache. "We arranged a security detail," he said absently.

As if conjured by the mere mention, the elevator doors opened on Deputy US Marshal Jack Yates and his security team all decked out in sterile bunny suits and respirators. Ezra pointedly ignored his former warden, barely waiting for the rest to wheel the heavy gurney clear before he brushed past into the elevator. A few of the marshals bristled at his apparent rudeness, but all Buck saw was raw nerves and bone-deep hurt.

"What the hell happened?" he demanded of Vin as soon as the doors slid closed on Ezra.

"He did," Vin said, jerking his chin to where the security team was extracting a limp body from the rear of the SUV. It was the kid from the surveillance footage.

Buck frowned as they easily transferred the prisoner to the gurney and began securing the auto-scaling restraints. The wide bands of thick metal looked like ridiculous overkill around slender wrists.

"Not that left leg," Vin called out, when they started strapping down the kid’s other limbs. "You tell Doc to check his ankle. Don’t think it’s broken, but he was hobblin’ some." The marshal Vin addressed glanced toward Yates, who nodded his approval.

Buck stared after the retreating clutch of bodies; between the uniforms he caught sight of the young prisoner, still lax and vulnerable in unconsciousness. They wheeled him into the elevator reserved for transferring potential hazards directly to the isolation lab. "Did Ezra – ?" The unfinished question carried a host of meanings.

Vin answered them all with a worried nod.

"Damn it," Buck exhaled.

"Had to," Vin said, of the kid’s insensible state. "Kid was terrified and hurt. It woulda been worse –"

"I know," Buck answered distractedly. "There's gonna be hell to pay when this gets out. I gotta find Chris. And Ezra."

"I'll talk to Ezra," Vin offered. "I'm headin' to the showers anyway."

The opening briefly cracked Buck’s worry. “I was gonna say something,” he agreed giving Vin’s shoulder an affectionate shove.

 

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

 

JD reveled in the vast downy cocoon of white that embraced him. In his entire life, he had never known a bed so comfortable. He floated, weightless in the drifts of soft feathers and softer sheets. Indulgently, he stretched, unable to reach the edge no matter which direction he sprawled in. The bed was warm, with just the perfect hint of coolness clinging to the sheets. The bed was … moving?

A low vibration rumbled through the space, barely more than a vestibular whisper; but it was enough to fracture the cozy security. The background melody that JD hadn’t even been fully aware of swelled and threatened to drown him beneath a will that wasn’t his own. JD grasped at a muffled memory, he’d heard a tune like this once before. 

The world shuddered; cracks of cold grey threaded the warm white. 

“It’s creepy,” a formless voice slipped through the fractures. “Freak looks human. An army of them landed tomorrow and you wouldn’t even know who to fight.”

Freak? JD realized with a jolt that the voice meant him. Hostility crackled through the air with enough menace to keep JD very, very still. He forced his breathing into the steady rhythms of the deeply unconscious.

A second voice asked, “Where you think this one’ll end up? Some cushy split-level in Des Moines or up in The Attic with the monsters?” JD could hear the capital letters in the way he said ‘The Attic.’

“Don’t know. Don’t care,” there was an edge to the tone that gave lie to the flippant words. “You shoulda seen the lather Larabee was in when he got back though. Figure Standish is in for it.”

“Standish, feh.” A third guard entered the conversation with a derisive snort. “Now there’s one that should be rotting in The Attic. Never understand what Travis was thinking. Dammed spooky one, he is.”

“Doesn’t stop you from playing poker with him,” his companion chided.

“Just ‘cause he’s a freak, doesn’t mean he don’t run a good game.”

JD’s heart was pounding. The conversation didn’t make any sense – monsters and attics and freaks. Except, pieces of memory clicked into place like a cypher resolving. Twice now he’d met a man with startling green eyes, and twice his reality had distorted like a wrung washcloth. A freak they’d said. They’d used the same word for JD, he wished he knew why.

“Can it, you three,” a commanding voice cut through the gossip and JD’s thoughts equally. “You idiots know the drill. Aliens go to the Doc for classification and evaluation. What happens from there is none of your lookout.”

Aliens. The word thundered through JD’s mind. He wanted to laugh, but it wasn’t funny. It was terrifying. The wheeled bed lurched to a stop.


	7. Chapter 7

The waking laboratory whirred and chimed like an orchestra tuning before a performance. Nathan, playing the attentive conductor, strode between the half a dozen stations double-checking settings. He moved without his customary grace, but quite well for someone who had nearly been plant food a few hours earlier.

The lingering pain in his throat was forgotten in the thrill he'd felt when Communications had relayed the message from Ezra. Though reported breaches were fairly common, breaches in which something survived the trip to earth were not. Most of what they found was flotsam and jetsam; like the debris of some vast cosmic shipwreck – lots of tech in various states of damage, the occasional body, survivors were exceptionally rare.

Even after a year of working alongside Ezra, Nathan felt the same excitement at the merest possibility of meeting an intelligent being from another planet as he had when Director Travis had originally recruited him. Of course, if he had known that his first alien was going to be a prickly, sarcastic, pain in the ass, Nathan's enthusiasm might have been tempered a bit. Still, they couldn't all be that difficult. He hoped.

The door buzzed, announcing that the airlock had been activated. Nathan slipped his respirator into place and went to greet the security team. The first sight of the alleged alien was a sobering shock to Nathan's zeal. The kid appeared younger than he had in the surveillance footage. He was unconscious, hair framed against the stark white of the gurney like a dark halo. It was disquieting how human he appeared to the naked eye.

Yates guided the wheeled bed to a clear spot in the center of the lab and secured the wheels in place with locks imbedded in the floor. “Tanner says he’s injured,” he offered gruffly, gesturing to the kid’s unrestrained left leg. “There are two men posted outside. See you in four hours, Doc.”

Nathan nodded his acknowledgement absentmindedly, Yates already banished from his thoughts as his attention turned to the dozens of tests that lay ahead. The airlock hissed again, but Nathan barely registered it. He began repositioning his lab equipment around the gurney. 

“Whatever it is you think I am – I’m not. I’m human.” The quiet statement made Nathan half jump out of his skin. He’d been wrong about the prisoner being unconscious.

Gathering himself, Nathan turned to face the young man. “No one said you were anything but human,” he answered carefully, studying his guest. Twice before, Nathan had been called on to make the initial examination of a newly encountered alien. Neither case had been able to communicate freely, nor had they been so visually indistinguishable from human. If anyone other than a member of his team had brought the kid in, Nathan would easily believe a mistake had been made. He reminded himself that however the illusion was achieved, it had been perfect enough to fool even Ezra for a time.

“They did,” the kid said, jerking his chin toward the sealed door. “They used lots of words. Freak. Monster. Alien.” There was a tremor of fear that bled in to his words, though Nathan could plainly see he was struggling to stay calm and collected. 

“Whoever you think you got, you’re wrong.” Huge dark eyes pleaded Nathan to believe him. “I am just an average human. I don’t know anything and I didn’t see anything.”

Nathan broke the gaze. Uneasy guilt welled in his stomach. Get a grip on yourself, he scolded. The exams weren’t any more painful than a blood draw, and they needed to know if the boy was dangerous. He forcibly rejected the confusion and drew upon his professional detachment. Be a doctor first, scientist second. He could manage that.

“Okay,” he said agreeably. “Human it is. They said your leg was hurt. Can I take a look at it for you?”

The kid considered for a moment, arms flexing unconsciously against the comically oversized restraints. He studied Nathan with inscrutable eyes, looking for the trap in his offer of help. Reluctantly he nodded his consent. 

Gently, Nathan rolled up his pant leg to check the wounded limb. Mud – Nathan decided to diplomatically call it – flaked off the cloth in chunks. His ankle, concealed beneath an equally filthy sock, was badly swollen. 

Confident fingers manipulated the joint. “I’m Nathan,” he offered, using conversation as a distraction from the pain. “What do I call you?”

The kid hissed and tensed against the restraints. “Why don’t you ask your friend with the eyes? That guy an alien?”

“Ezra?” Nathan struggled for a way to describe Ezra. Especially to someone who definitely hadn’t been read into the need-to-know file on their resident extraterrestrial. “Ezra is Ezra,” he finished lamely.

“Sure he’s Ezra. You’re Nathan. And I’m crazy, ‘cause there is no way all of this is real.” Under the grime, the kid was ashen and shaking with pain. 

“Not crazy,” Nathan said, “just a puzzle that needs solving.” He pulled one of the carts closer and withdrew a wedge shaped paddle that hummed to life in his hand. The blue glow fell on the kid’s ankle, warming the skin and easing the pain. The swelling visibly decreased.

“I’m the puzzle?” The kid asked skeptically. “You’re the one waving a magic wand around.”

“Science,” Nathan corrected primly, “not magic.”

“Science-fiction,” he countered. His expression relaxed into a ghost of a smile. “That’s better, thanks.”

Nathan passed the paddle over the injury twice more, giving the healing field time to sink deeply into the tissue. “It’s still going to be tender for a while, but you should be able to walk okay.”

The kid’s hands opened; fingers and palms stretched wide, wrists tugging against his bonds. “Don’t think I’ll have to worry about walking for a while.”

“It’s just until we know if you’re a danger to Earth,” Nathan said. “Until we know what you are.”

“I’m human,” the kid repeated. “I’m JD.”

“Okay, JD,” Nathan said, with a reassuring smile. “Then take my tests and we’ll prove you’re human.” In spite of himself, Nathan found that he truly hoped it would work out that way. Mentally he calculated the dose of Vergessen needed to remove the encounter from JD’s memory and drop him safely back into his life.

Nathan picked up the leads for the first test he wanted to run, slipping the clips onto the first two fingers of JD’s right hand. He’d barely started the scan when the machine chirped with results. He frowned at the monitor. “That’s not right,” he said under his breath.

He hit start again. The machine responded just as quickly the second time. The results were identical. Absolutely, straight down the middle average human results. Nathan huffed in annoyance. Clearly the calibrations were off. It didn’t matter; it was his broadest test – meant only to establish some basic baseline readings. He’d just move on to the next series. 

The next three hours became an exercise in bafflement and irritation. No matter which test he ran – the almost instantaneous answer was always the same. Human – and not just any human, but the most impossibly normal human in existence. The readings didn’t just fall within the acceptable median range; they hit it dead center every single time. 

As the tests went on, JD’s mood shifted from wary tolerance to open curiosity. He piped in with questions about Nathan’s misbehaving lab equipment, which Nathan answered; and about his current predicament, which Nathan avoided.

Finally accepting the utter betrayal of everything in the laboratory more sophisticated than his stethoscope, Nathan got back to basics. “I’m going to need to draw a blood sample,” he said apologetically. 

Maneuvering around the restraints was awkward. Nathan considered freeing the needed arm long enough to do the draw, but figured he’d already violated enough protocols by semi-befriending the subject. Once the equipment was finally in place, he found a likely vein. In exactly the same place he would have on a human.

JD wrinkled up his nose and looked away when Nathan placed the needle against his skin.

“Sorry,” Nathan said, working as quickly as he could. “Last one, I promise.”

Even with his face turned from Nathan, JD radiated sudden tension. “What happens then?” The barely audible question sucked the oxygen from the room.

Nathan’s stomach soured. “Nobody will hurt you. Even if –“ he broke off before making any promises they both knew he couldn’t keep. “There are rules.” He busied himself labelling the samples he’d taken so he wouldn’t have to look at JD.

He activated one of the ventilation hoods on standby to evacuate any noxious fumes. The droning hum filled the laboratory like a hive of kicked bees. “Our time is almost up,” he said softly beneath the white noise. “They’re going to take you to a holding cell while I compile my report. Then the directors’ board will decide what to make of you. If they decide you’re dangerous –“

“I’m not,” JD protested.

Nathan shushed him with a small gesture; he was way out on a limb now. “If they decide that you are – there’s a long term holding facility.”

“The Attic,” JD said, voice lowered to match Nathan’s.

Nathan frowned. Clearly he wasn’t the only one who had been speaking out of turn. “Yeah. That’s what we call it. But I don’t think you are dangerous. In which case, there are colonies of others that we’ll relocate you to. Places where you can just go about your life.”

“And if they decide that I’m human?”

Nathan felt as low and rotten as he ever had in his life. “In that case,” he said, carefully not lying, “We’ll make you forget about all of this and drop you right back into your life. It’ll be like this never happened.”

JD nodded, resolute. “Good. Option three is good.”

“Yeah.” Nathan reached out and placed a comforting hand on JD’s shoulder. “Option three is good.”


	8. Chapter 8

Buck breezed through the bullpen door, shattering the quiet like a good-natured hurricane. His steps were jaunty despite the obscenely late night. The occupied desk at the far end of the room surprised him. Most of the team had still been sorting out the mess from the warehouse when he’d ducked out for a brief rest. A cursory glance at the chaos around Josiah’s workstation suggested that it was still last night for some of them.

The older agent was hunched over the table, his face mostly obscured by the comically over-sized frames of double loupe glasses. Buck was reminded of a mad scientist from the pulps he’d devoured as a boy. The thought made him chuckle; his life had ended up so far beyond the bizarre fiction of those stories. The kid he had once been was a lifetime ago -- a few lifetimes technically.

Leaving Josiah to his task, Buck turned his attention toward the elaborate and cantankerous coffee maker that Ezra had installed in a particularly malicious act of revenge for some slight. The resulting drink was clearly the nectar of the gods, but the contraption required such charm and finesse that Buck spent more time seducing the machine than he did his average conquest. Chris had been out and out forbidden to so much as glance toward it.

Eventually, Buck’s devotions were rewarded with a rich, smooth brew that made the hair on his arm stand up. He poured two cups and drifted toward Josiah. 

Buck could track the progress of hours in the bedlam that swirled around Josiah in drifts of the collected ephemera of John Dunne’s life. Clothing and mundane detritus had been catalogued and set aside in haphazard piles that threatened to spill out of the pooled light that separated Josiah’s workbench from the darkness of the larger room. The more blatantly personal artifacts had been treated with more care and interest, but they too had been disregarded for the moment. The few pieces of extensively customized tech had been cracked open and cables attached to feed the data to Casey for her analysis.

Wafting a cup of ambrosia beneath Josiah’s nose, Buck craned his neck to get a peek at what had mesmerized his friend. The black box was pretty enough, but the small cube didn’t mean anything to Buck. He shrugged and nudged Josiah when the smell wasn’t enough to catch his attention.

Josiah flipped up the bulky lenses and blinked owlishly at Buck. 

“Coffee,” Buck prompted, gesturing with the cup again. 

“Ah.” Josiah took the offered coffee and drank a deep sip. “Machine’s happy,” he said, closing his eyes and sniffing the cup. “Can always taste when she is.”

Buck took a drink of his own and nodded. “She was a mite less temperamental than normal,” he agreed.

Josiah drained his mug and handed it back to Buck. He yawned and stretched expansively. “What time is it?” he asked.

“Half-gone nine,” Buck answered, grinning at Josiah’s wince. “Where is everyone?”

“Chris and Nathan are meeting with the directors about our young guest.” Josiah jerked his chin toward the computer monitor where surveillance footage of the prisoner played. “Brothers Vin and Ezra are hopefully getting some sleep. I expect there will be doings today.”

“Aren’t there always?” Buck chuckled. He took another drink of coffee and leaned forward to study the flickering image. Buck recognized the featureless gray walls of the holding cells. The prisoner was curled into a tight ball, back wedged into the corner of the built in ledge. The high vantage point of the camera made him look small and vulnerable. Buck flashed to the moment they had passed each other in front of the warehouse. It wasn’t just the camera. “Huh. He doesn’t look dangerous.”

“No. That he does not,” Josiah agreed absently; disappearing once more behind the bulky black rig of the magnifying lenses.

Buck set the coffee mugs down on a nearly level space on the desk; Josiah didn’t notice, absorbed once more in the cube. Buck brought up the controls for the camera on Josiah’s computer and adjusted the frame. His chest ached. On the screen he could see the kid tensing at something. Buck zoomed in on the huddled figure. The dark head of hair lifted, revealing a glimpse of weary eyes. The prisoner stuck out his tongue and vanished. For a second, Buck just stood there blinking at the screen. The cell was still visible, the timestamp was current, but the prisoner was gone.

“Shit!” Buck’s brain caught up with events and he raced toward the containment cells. 

“Thanks for the coffee,” Josiah said to the place where Buck had been.

 

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

 

JD hugged his knees closer to his chest, doing his level best to ignore the smoky glass dome in the ceiling. He should have expected that they’d be watching; but his capacity for weird seemed to have maxed out right around the time he’d woken up in an honest-to-god secret laboratory. The whirring motor as the camera adjusted was like a mosquito drone in the silent room. It made his nerves itch.

Valiantly, he resisted the urge to make an obscene gesture at the unseen watchers. He just needed a few unobserved moments to collect himself and try to piece together how exactly he’d fallen down this rabbit hole. The motor hummed again, and JD just knew the watcher was intruding further -- robbing him of even the smallest measure of privacy.

He lifted his face defiantly toward the lens and stuck out his tongue. 

The camera stilled and silence filled the cell again.

JD uncurled, pleased that his message was apparently received and understood. Gingerly he climbed down from the wide ledge, testing his ankle before he trusted it to support his weight. There was a deep ache, but it was muted as though the injury had occurred days and not hours ago. The fact that the doc’s magic wand had actually healed his ankle made everything else that had happened too real and too scary to deal with.

Deliberately choking down his rising panic, JD began searching the cell, keeping a cautious ear tuned for the whine of a panning camera. His search didn’t turn up anything useful, but at least he didn’t feel quite so passive. The circuit brought him near the door. In the hallway beyond there was the sound of running feet and voices raised in alarm. 

JD strained to hear what the disturbance was about. “— gone, you moron.”

A claxon blared with a thought-shattering wail. JD clapped both hands over his ears and hunched against the pain. A small window set in the door slammed open. JD squinted into a familiar face. The maniac with the chainsaw from last night was yelling something that JD couldn’t hear.

The siren ended as abruptly as it’d begun. “—that damned thing off!” 

“Idiots,” he said under his breath; or maybe he was still yelling and JD’d gone deaf. 

The maniac flicked his glance to JD and then vanished back down the hallway. He was back a moment later. “How’d you do that?” he asked.

“Do what?” JD said, massaging his ears against the lingering ringing.

“The trick with the camera. Why can’t we see you on the CCTV?”

“What?” JD was fed up. In the past day he’d been kidnapped, experimented on, called an alien, nearly run over, lost his home, and his patience. “Look, I don’t know what the point of this game is, but I’m done! There’s no trick. If your camera doesn’t work, that’s got nothing to do with me. I want to go home, and unless that’s what you want to talk about I’ve got nothing else to say.”

“Camera works fine,” the maniac said, blithely ignoring that he’d just been told to go away. “We can see the cell just fine. It’s you that we can’t. I’m Buck, we met last night. Well, sort of.”

“I remember,” JD said, violating his own ultimatum. “The maniac with the chainsaw.”

Buck chuckled at that. “I find a chainsaw makes a memorable entrance.” His grin was easy and infectious and JD was struggling to stay angry. “So really, what’d you do to the cameras?” 

JD started to repeat his denial of any camera related hijinks; but Buck turned away from the window and addressed someone on his side of the door. “It’s fine,” he said, exasperated. “He’s still in there. Everything’s okay. Just give me a minute, all right? Go guard some paperclips or something, if you think you can handle it.” He watched whoever it was walk away before he turned back to JD with a sheepish grin.

“Security’s a might riled at the moment.” He made it sound like a shared joke between the two of them. “Of course, that probably has more to do with me catching ‘em with their boots up than it does you.”

A soft electronic chirp made Buck glance down. “Look, kid, I gotta go. I’ll check in on you later. Need anything? I can have the brain trust bring you something to eat.”

“Not hungry,” JD said, rather than ask Buck to stay and keep him company.

Buck must have heard something in his tone. He gave JD a soulful look, holding the eye contact until JD almost wondered if Buck were like Ezra. “Okay, kid,” he said, once he’d finished that silent evaluation. “I’ll bring you something when I come back. And then you’ll tell me about the cameras?”

JD huffed. “There’s nothing to tell.” Despite the grumbling, he found his spirits raised by the promise that Buck would return.

“Hey wait!” he called out as Buck started to close the window. Buck paused and JD found himself suddenly bashful. “I’m JD,” he offered.

Buck’s sudden grin was so wide and guileless; that for a moment JD could forget his predicament and answer that smile with one of his own.


	9. Chapter 9

Josiah’s cell phone buzzed. A moment later the computer chimed and the task lights at his desk flickered, a precaution against his tendency toward preoccupation. He set down the soldering iron and checked his phone. The lights flickered again. “Okay, Casey. Message received.”

The lights flickered a third time.

Josiah frowned and brought up the interface Casey preferred. “Casey?” he asked, watching the still flickering light.

A petite brunette appeared on screen, a distracted expression on her pretty features. “Chris wants a meet in fifteen,” she informed him.

“So I heard.”

“Hmm?” Casey asked, propping her chin on one fist and sighing.

“Casey,” Josiah gestured to the lamp, “message delivered. Do you mind?”

She sat up straight, flicking a braid back over one shoulder. “Sorry. Sorry.” She made a quick gesture as though shooing a fly. The lamp ceased to flash and the alert stopped chiming. 

“Everything okay?” Josiah asked absently; collecting the items he thought Chris would be interested in examining. After a moment’s consideration, he added a tool kit and palm-sized generator. He was close with the cube, he could feel it. Once he finished by-passing the burnt out power supply, he would be able to fire it up. Whatever it was.

“He tickles,” Casey finally answered. Her voice was dreamy and her eyes unfocused.

Josiah frowned, mentally replaying the conversation. “He? Our guest? Casey, did you find something?”

The question seemed to anchor her. “What? No.” She shook herself. Josiah had never seen the AI flustered before, it was disconcerting. “He’s –“ She tsk’d, overshooting casual by a wide mile. “He’s nothing special, just writes nice code ‘s all.”

He’d also never seen her lie before.

There was the chirp of a third party entering the chat and then chief programmer and Casey’s self-appointed guardian, Nettie Wells, broke into the conversation. “Casey,” her voice was sharp with concern. “What do you mean his code tickles?”

“No.” Casey was drifting again. “No, it’s not the code.” A frown crinkled her brow, her head tilted as though listening to something Josiah couldn’t hear. “He doesn’t want to be here. You’re scaring h—“ Her words broke off into abrupt silence, unnatural stillness seized her.

“Nettie?” Josiah asked, alarmed. It was unnerving to see the normally lively girl appear so static and lifeless; he forgot sometimes that behind the intelligent eyes was a computer.

“I isolated her higher functions,” Nettie explained tersely. “She was releasing the locks on the containment cells.” She swore and continued only half speaking to Josiah. “Some little code monkey thinks he can waltz in here and hijack my girl, he’s got another thing coming. Just need to figure out how deep the infection goes and how he’s controlling it.”

Knowing he’d been forgotten entirely, Josiah ended the connection and gathered his things for the meeting.

 

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

 

The rest of the team was assembled in the briefing room when Chris and Nathan joined them. Buck, Ezra and Vin were huddled in hushed conference – never, in Chris’s experience, a good thing. Josiah was seated at the far end of the table, screwdriver in hand and intent expression on his face – something else for Chris to keep an eye on.

Chris could feel a headache coming on and wondered what he had done to deserve the past twelve hours. The meeting with the directors had been less than satisfactory; at least two of his team members were edging up on open rebellion – four if he was reading the body language on Buck and Vin correctly. It had taken some fancy footwork – and a favor from Travis that Chris didn’t know how he’d ever repay –to keep the directors from tossing Ezra back into The Attic. And was he even going to get thanked for his efforts? Not if the defiant tilt of Ezra’s chin was any indication.

“Okay, gentleman,” he said tossing the thick file folder onto the table with a resounding thunk. “Someone please give me options, because the directors are pushing for The Attic.”

Buck froze, halfway into his seat. “He’s a kid. Of all the wrong-headed –“

“He’s not a kid,” Chris cut him off and glared until Buck sat down. “He’s a potential incursion and we need to determine if he’s dangerous. Travis wants our opinion before he lets them throw away the key.”

“Ezra vouches for him,” Vin said, flicking his eyes toward Ezra to confirm that was in fact the case.

“Surprisingly, his recommendation doesn’t carry much water right now,” Chris’s retort was caustic; his anger at Ezra’s omission buzzed like hornets in the air between them.

Affecting a cool demeanor, Ezra shrugged. “For what value you may find in it, I do not believe the lad is knowingly a threat to your planet.”

Vin frowned at him, unhappy with the way Ezra’s phrasing distanced himself from the rest of them. “You said he didn’t know what he was.”

There was a flicker of green light in Ezra’s eyes; hidden behind the mask almost as quickly as it appeared. Vin felt oddly satisfied that he’d managed, however briefly to shake the Savnahan’s illusion of aloofness.

“A weapon that is unaware of its purpose is no less dangerous for the ignorance,” Ezra said, not bothering to hide his weariness. “Mr. Larabee is right. The directors will not accept the vouchsafe of someone they themselves are extorting.” 

The reminder that Ezra wasn’t there of his own free will struck Vin like a blow and he felt guilty that he had the luxury to forget it.

“I don’t think he’s a weapon,” Nathan offered, filling the awkward silence that followed. “I don’t know what he is, my tests were… inconclusive.” He scowled at the read outs. “Well, they were conclusive. They just don’t make any sense.”

“What do you mean, Nate?” Buck asked, pouncing on the distraction. He caught Vin’s eye and understanding flowed between them.

“Didn’t matter what test I ran, every single time the results were the same. Completely average.”

“So human?” Vin asked.

Nathan sighed unhappily. “Abnormally so. Every single column came in perfectly normal. It’s like if you asked the computer to draw a picture of a baseline human. The numbers would all be feasible, but it’s statistically unlikely that such a person would actually exist.”

Buck tapped his lip thoughtfully. “So the computer lied for him?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Nathan leaned back in his chair, one hand rubbing at his forehead. “But I spent four hours talking with him and I don’t think he means any harm. He seems like a nice kid. Scared and upset, but nice. I… tried to tell the directors that, but I don’t think it helped.”

Chris was watching Buck through narrowed eyes. “That mean something to you, Buck? ‘Cause nothing I’ve heard is going to change their minds.”

Buck took a deep breath and then sighed unhappily. “Hell, it’ll be in the security log. JD, uh, disappeared, sort of.”

“What?” Chris was on his feet heading toward the door.

“From the camera,” Buck added hastily. “He was still in his cell and the cameras were working, except he didn’t show up on them.”

“At all?” Nathan asked, scribbling notes in the margin of his printouts. 

“Well, no. He was there one second and then he wasn’t. But I went down and checked. He’s still in the cell.”

“So that’s two systems that are totally compromised?” Chris’s temples throbbed.

“Three,” Josiah said, finally joining the conversation. “Nettie had to take Casey off-line before she unlocked the doors for him.”

Chris could just stare at the anthropologist. His head was definitely going to explode. It was going to explode and it would be his team’s fault and they wouldn’t even feel guilty about it. “Did you think that might be relevant?” he finally asked, once he trusted himself to start with something that wasn’t four letters long and filthy. 

“Could be a virus,” Josiah said, unconcerned. “Nettie’s checking. The tech that came in with our guest is mostly contemporary Earth in origin, though extensively customized.”

“If Mr. Dunne is the author of a virus that efficient,” Ezra said, “they might well elect to put him in storage regardless of his origins.” He couldn’t suppress the tremor that rippled through him. The agency was nothing if not inventive in their containment measures. For him, they had stripped away contact with any flesh and blood beings that could be swayed by his influence. His meals were conveyed by automaton, the occasional interview conducted via remote video chats. The months of utter isolation had been like losing a sense for the empath; he was left both starved for and overly sensitive to the connection of his fellow beings.

Ezra wondered what they would arrange for the young man. His mind conjured up the melodramatic image of an oubliette, naked of any comforts or technology that could be turned to his benefit. It made him ache with anger and grief. With a start, he realized that the emotions he was feeling were being amplified by those of the men around him. They had each made the same logical leap that he had, or perhaps he was projecting it to them. He tightened his shields, cutting off the emotional feedback loop that was building between them.

“Casey could account for the security cameras,” Vin said, worrying at the puzzle. “What about your lab, Nate? Does she run them?”

Nathan shook his head. “No. My stuff is totally isolated until I transfer the data over to the servers. Everything in the lab was acting buggy from the start, even things that aren’t networked.”

“Wait. Back up.” Chris pinned Josiah with a shrewd look. “What do you mean ‘mostly’?”

Josiah smiled brilliantly at Chris and presented the small black cube with a flourish. One side had been pried free and now trailed cables like tentacles. “The battery was burnt-out, not uncommon with small devices that have been exposed to an anomaly. I was able to bypass the power supply and jerry-rig a connection to a micro generator.”

Without waiting for objections, he flipped a switch on the generator. Cool white light filled the palm of the hand cradling the device. “Oops,” Josiah said and rotated the cube so the light pointed upward.

The world, or at least the pieces of it immediately surrounding Josiah, did not end. Which Chris supposed, on the whole, was a pleasant surprise. The light extended about a foot above Josiah’s hand and arced outward in a soft dome. Inside the glow was the three dimensional bust of a young, human-ish man wearing a uniform.

“Did you know it was going to do that?” Chris asked Josiah, who just shrugged genially.

Ezra made a soft, pleased sound. “I’ve encountered these before,” he said, leaning forward to pull Josiah’s flattened palm closer. “We called them aevi; but most space-farers have a version. Think of it like a memento mori – a receptacle for images, messages, and vital statistics to be sent to loved ones. They’re more practical to ship home than a body.”

Ezra scrutinized the slowly rotating hologram. “There should be a – ah!” He ran a finger along the edge of the image and it blossomed into a half dozen bright points like a constellation. “Menu.”

“I don’t recognize the date format used, but the labels are in English – so I think we can assume Terran affiliation.” He scanned the floating options, deftly manipulating the display. “Here we go. Gentlemen, meet Jhaun Ahlmeka, ensign with the UEASA.”

A flat image of Jhaun appeared next to dense rows of information in two languages. Ezra pulled the English version forward and expanded it. 

“It’s like reading Middle English, only in reverse,” Josiah mused, picking out unfamiliar letterforms and words amongst the familiar. “It’s consistent with the evolution of a language over a few hundred years, and obviously influenced by contact with outside cultures.”

“Not to mention military jargon,” Buck cut in. “I know an OMPF when I see one. Centuries come and go, military paperwork is eternal.”

“So who is Ensign Ahlmeka to the kid in containment?” Vin asked.

Ezra scrolled through quickly, scanning the record. He found the document he was looking for and opened a new layer. “Ensign Ahlmeka petitioned his Captain for married personnel quarters for himself and Chief Warrant Officer Dunne. There’s an attached record of marriage.” Another new file opened. 

“Huh.” Ezra sounded as blatantly surprised as any of the others had ever heard him. “He was Litaskian. I thought they were nearly extinct.”

“Still haven’t quite grasped all the nuances of time travel, have you, Ez?” Buck chided. “Kid’s from our future. You must be from his.”

“No, I understand that. It’s just that in my time, they were mostly myth and rumor. The few that were left had long since abandoned their homeworld and gone into hiding. For good reason. A functional Litaskian on the black-market, well, you could name any price you could think of. And get it.”

“Functional? You make them sound like spare parts.” Nathan bristled with anger. 

“Hardly.” Ezra ducked his head, for a moment he was a lifetime away. “Earth is not the only planet to struggle with darker impulses. Litaskians were – shall we call them technopaths for simplicity’s sake? As we’ve experienced this morning, electronic devices have an affinity for them. The more complex the A.I. the stronger the reaction.”

“That’s why Casey was mooning over him?” Josiah asked.

Ezra nodded. “I would assume so. I’ve never actually met one before, so I don’t know much about how they do it. I do know that possessing one was something of an unobtainable dream for every ship captain, smuggler, and petty politician I’ve ever met.”

“A Litaskian on board a ship was an untouchable advantage. Need to avoid the authorities? They could simply ask the port control systems to file an altered manifest or ignore the ship altogether. Get one close enough to your enemy’s ship and watch as that ship’s A.I. cheerfully vents all of the oxygen into space. Election results, security access, anything that relied on a computer system was vulnerable.”

“If they could do all that,” Buck asked, “what happened to them? Why did they have to hide?”

“I don’t actually know. Before today I’d never heard of one serving on a ship without being,” Ezra cleared his throat, deeply uncomfortable, “installed.”

“Installed?” Chris was fairly certain he didn’t want to actually know the answer.

“An appalling practice, where the – the, uh, subject was medically rendered compliant and then affixed permanently to the ship’s central processor.”

“Compliant?” Nathan asked hoarsely.

“Lobotomized,” Ezra answered, equally quiet.

Horrified silence settled over the assembled men. Josiah, Vin, and Nathan looked as nauseous hearing the tale as Ezra felt telling it. Chris had disappeared behind that mask of flint he wore sometimes. Buck just looked like he wanted to hit someone.

“Christ,” Buck swore softly. “And JD’s one of these Listakians?”

“Litaskian,” Ezra corrected mildly. He manipulated the marriage record, bringing up the second party’s information. “Only half. Mother was Kit Dunne, of Earth.”

“Is that possible,” Nathan asked, seizing on any detail other than the revulsion he felt.

“With medical intercession,” Ezra replied. “I’m not familiar with his era, but I would venture that the proof is sitting in our containment cell.” He started to flick through the other menu options to regain his composure. It bothered him to have shared such exposed reactions with the others.

“Turn it off,” Chris snapped abruptly.

Catching the curious looks his direction, Chris explained, “Josiah, you said it was probably the trip here that burned out the battery, right?”

Josiah nodded.

“And Ezra, you said he didn’t know what he was?”

“So far as I could tell, he believes himself to be human.”

“He did,” Nathan added guiltily.

“Then he hasn’t seen any of this. It’s not right that we know this before he does.” He stood up, coming to decisions faster than he was aware of asking himself questions. “Vin, go with Nathan and test his lab equipment. I want to know we can get a good baseline reading. Ezra and Josiah, I need you to put together something I can use to convince Travis to parole Dunne into our care.”

“Really?” Buck asked, incredulous.

“You’ve called him JD twice now, Buck. I know what it means when you’ve named the puppy.” 

Buck’s smile could have powered a small city. 

Chris gestured for Buck to take the aevi from Josiah. “Bring that thing and come with me.” Chris headed for the door without looking to see if the others were acting on his orders. “It’s time I met the kid.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMPF= Official Military Personnel File


	10. Chapter 10

The hopeful look on JD’s face when Buck opened the heavy door was enough to break his heart. Damned kid had absolutely no reason to trust Buck, but there it was written all over him. That open, trusting look made Buck think he knew why JD’s people weren’t masters of the known universe.

“JD, I got someone wants to –“ The smell struck Buck like a trout across the face. “Whooo-kay, change of plans. We’re gonna get you cleaned up and then I got someone wants to meet you.”

JD pretended to take an exaggerated sniff and shrugged. “You get numb after a while.”

“Hmph. Not all of us have made that adjustment. How do you feel about a shower?”

“Only like it’s the best thing ever.” JD hopped off the built in bench and stepped forward.

Buck grinned at him, and then glanced over his shoulder. “Look, I’m supposed to cuff you before we go anywhere. Actually, I’m supposed to cuff you and bring along an escort. But I think we can forego both if you give me your word that you won’t try anything.”

JD looked like he wanted that a lot, but instead of agreeing straight off, he asked, “How do you know you can trust me?”

“Hell, kid – maybe you should turn that question around. Didn’t your mama teach you not to follow strangers into locker rooms?” Buck held his hands up in appeasement. “You want to be treated like a prisoner, we can do that. You aren’t leaving just yet either way, but at least we can make things a little more comfortable.”

Some of the easiness was gone between them and Buck wondered if he’d made a mistake. Then JD’s shoulders slumped. He looked up at Buck through dark bangs and said, “I guess it beats walking handcuffed into a locker room with a couple of strangers.”

The dry joke startled a guffaw from Buck. “C’mon, kid. Right now you’d offend a G'zniak.”

That got a curious head tilt.

“Trust me you’d get it if you’d ever met one. And you don’t ever want to meet one.”

While JD scrubbed his hair a mostly unnecessary fourth time, Buck scrounged something for him to wear. It wasn’t strictly essential. He knew that a cleanup team would have gone back to the warehouse where they’d found JD and brought back anything that didn’t require a plasma torch to remove, which presumably would include clothes; and Buck knew there were a few garments amongst the piles still sitting on Josiah’s workbench. But Buck was a man with a plan, and if he’d learned nothing else from watching Ezra these past months, it was that set dressing counted nearly as much as the story you were selling. He dug a soft gray hoodie out of his own locker and mentally calculated its size against JD’s and grinned. The kid would look like a waif wearing that to meet Travis. Buck wondered if it would be overkill to get Nathan to splint the ankle that he’d noticed JD favoring.

The sound of running water stopped and a minute later JD emerged with one towel wrapped around his hips. He scrubbed at his hair with another towel and expression that could only be called blissful.

“Thanks,” he said when he noticed Buck standing there. “Thought maybe I was gonna die smelling that bad and nobody’d even notice.”

“It’s an improvement,” Buck agreed. He held out the stack of clothing. “Here. We can’t get at your clothes just yet, but these should do you in the meantime.”

A range of emotions flashed across JD’s face so openly that Buck felt like he was eavesdropping. For this plan to work, he needed the kid to trust him – and by extension, Chris – not remind him that he was their prisoner.

“I’ll just, uh…” Buck shoved the clothes at JD and retreated to give him some privacy.

After JD dressed, Buck led him to the small library, casting a critical eye over everything. Chris had chosen the space as it was the closest thing to cozy that the base had to offer, short of commandeering someone’s personal quarters. While Buck had been collecting JD, Chris had pulled the comfortable reading chairs into a circle around a low, round table that Buck was positive he’d seen in Nathan’s quarters. The space was bright and warm and the arrangement intimate and unthreatening. Buck wasn’t the only one dressing a stage.

Chris looked JD over appraisingly. When he caught Buck’s eye he didn’t quite smile, but Buck saw the satisfied glint and knew they were on the same page. 

Buck ushered JD to the ring of chairs and gestured to Chris expansively. “JD Dunne, meet Chris Larabee – our commander and one of my oldest friends. Chris, this is JD.” Introductions made, Buck faded back to let Chris get a feel for the kid on his own.

Even with uncertainty rolling off him in waves, JD caught the offered hand without hesitation and shook it firmly. “Mr. Larabee.” 

There was a slight stiffness to him that didn’t read as natural to Chris and he wrote it off as nerves. Chris was about to invite him to sit when recognition bloomed in JD's eyes and blossomed into a grin.

“I saw you,” he said, dropping the handshake and beginning to speak animatedly with both hands. “At the warehouse? You were fighting the, the uh–“ words momentarily failed JD and he huffed a small laugh at the crazy conversation he found himself in. “What was that thing anyway?”

“That puffed up salad bar was an eupui vine. We normally find them before they’re quite so lively, but the grow lights gave this one a boost.”

“But it was an alien, right? Like an alien, alien – not of this world alien?” JD figured if his world was going to lose all semblance of normal, he was just going to roll with it. If it turned out he was crazy in the end; well, it’d been a heck of a delusion so far. “How did it get here?”

“One thing at a time, kid,” Chris said, silently reconsidering his plan to let JD lead the conversation where it went naturally. He had a feeling they might be stuck on the alien thing for a while. He gestured to the waiting chairs and took a seat himself before continuing. “It did come from another planet, and if you’re really curious, Nathan has about a six hour lecture on the taxonomy of extraterrestrial botany. As for how it wound up here, we’ve been tracking some smugglers that traffic in exotic plants. They may have given one to your neighbors – nice neighborhood by the way – as a practical joke. They’ve done this sort of thing before.”

“Some joke. Karles and Vitaliy?”

“Not laughing. Friends of yours?”

JD shook his head, his enthusiasm tempered at the news. “No, but still.”

That trace of solemnity pleased Chris. Empathy wasn’t something they could teach, and it was one of the essential markers that Travis would look for in making his decision. Chris was also happy that JD wasn’t a close associate of the two drug dealers. Travis might be willing to take on another alien, but another alien delinquent might be a bridge too far. 

“JD,” Buck prompted, trying to get the conversation moving in a productive direction. They were working with a short clock. “We’ve got some questions you need to answer.”

The kid drew back in the chair, hunching inward. The oversized sweatshirt appeared to devour him. “So far it seems like you have more answers than I do,” he said, tone guarded. 

“Consider this an exchange of information then,” Chris said, putting an edge into his words. “Answer our questions, and we’ll fill in some of the blanks for you.”

That drew a sharp look from Buck. It had been Chris’s idea to let JD see the aevi. They hadn’t discussed holding that information hostage. The offer seemed to work on JD though, his posture relaxed a fraction as he considered. Buck had to bite back a chuckle as the kid tilted his head. Chris hadn’t been far off the mark with the puppy comparison. 

“What do you want to know,” JD asked, cautious but curious.

“How long have you lived in the warehouse?” Chris decided to start with a neutral question.

“Five months.” The kid relaxed another notch; it clearly wasn’t the line of questioning he’d been expecting. Chris found that interesting.

“Your security was,” Chris grappled for word choice, “eccentric. Do you always fortify your home like that?”

The quicksilver grin was back. “Like you said, it’s not a nice neighborhood and I have – I had a lot of expensive equipment.” He scowled, thinking of the ruined electronics. 

“What about the set-up in the tunnel?”

“It’s a really, really not nice neighborhood?” The obvious dodge was delivered with such a look of innocence that Buck started chuckling. Chris ignored his partner and pushed on.

“Tell me about your mother.”

And there was the question JD’d been anticipating like a blow. Chris could see the change crackle through JD like lightning. His face shuttered, a door slamming closed in those expressive eyes. Every line in the kid’s body went tense. His gaze dropped to the abruptly still hands in his lap.

“I don’t have anything to say about her.”

Chris pressed on as though JD hadn’t said anything. “What do you know about where she came from?”

JD scowled. “I said I don’t –“ His words broke off with a breathy laugh. “Holy shit! You really do think I’m an alien, don’t you?” He leaned back in the chair, fingers tapping unconsciously on the arm rest. “I’m not. My mom’s not. She was from Boston.” His gaze flipped from Chris to Buck and back again, looking for the punchline.

“What about your father?” Chris prompted gently.

JD snapped his eyes at Chris. “He died,” there was a flat, warning note in his voice. “He died and I never knew him. And I really don’t think he was an alien either.”

Chris set the aevi between them, the wires trailing over the edge of the table. “Do you know what this is?”

A sharp breath was the only warning Buck got before the kid exploded out of the chair, hitting his feet so fast he rocked forward. Buck flung himself between JD and Chris, a broad hand splayed across JD’s heaving chest as he braced himself for a fight. The kid didn’t seem to even notice Buck’s interference, however, beneath his fingers, Buck could feel JD shaking. 

The only outward reaction from Chris was that his gaze moved upward to stay locked on JD’s. 

“You had no right,” the kid’s voice was low and ragged. “You didn’t have to break it.”

In reply, Chris flipped the power switch and let the hologram bloom in an arc of cool light.


	11. Chapter 11

“What - ?”

Surprise knocked the pins clean out from under JD; his legs folded without regard for their customary duty of keeping his head from bouncing off the floor. Fortunately Buck’s big hands switched from restraining to supporting without missing a beat. He caught JD’s weight easily and guided him back into the abandoned chair.

“Easy there,” he soothed.

His hand lighted on JD’s shoulder and stayed as JD gaped at the slowly spinning image. Warmth from the comforting contact radiated through JD and grounded him.

“I…” JD couldn’t seem to raise his voice above a rough whisper. “I did not… I thought it was a gift.” His hands flexed helplessly, caught between gesture and action. “I thought that’s why it was important. Because he… Because it was from him.”

He looked up at Buck and explained, “Mama packed that from one side of the country to the other. She made me promise to keep it safe, but she never told me,” he gave a choked gasp that he hoped sounded more like laughter than a sob. “Anything, apparently.”

JD ducked his head and drew several shuddering breaths of suddenly scarce air, forcibly pulling the frayed pieces of his composure back together. 

Buck glared at Chris over JD’s head. There were gentler ways that could have gone. Chris shrugged, still watching JD intently.

“I didn’t know it did that,” JD said once he’d gathered himself.

“I can see that,” Chris replied neutrally. “Do you recognize the man?”

JD nodded, a short sharp jerk of his head. He’d spent a lifetime trying to find that face in his own features. “Mama drew him in her journals. That’s my father, John Dunne.”

Chris drew his fingers through the hologram and the image gave way to a menu tree. An official looking document accompanied by a two-dimensional image of an even younger John Dunne appeared. “Ensign Jhaun Ahlmeka,” Chris said, “of the United Earth Aeronautics and Space Administration.”

“United Earth…” JD shook himself and curled forward to press his palms against his eyes. “This is insane. You know this is insane, right?”

“It’s improbable,” Chris agreed. “This agency monitors a damaged point in time and space, like a massive whirlpool that collects debris from across the universe. We live on its shore. Things wash up here and it’s our job to deal with whatever survives the trip.”

“My parents?” JD asked, flashing back over countless bedtime stories that might have been his mother’s imagination, or now, he suspected, her memories. Her odd habits and quirks were suddenly thrown into sharp focus through this new lens. 

“Your mother, we think,” Chris said. “This,” he gestured to the cube, “is a memorial device. Exposure to the anomaly burned out the battery. Since she was carrying it, we think she made the trip alone.”

JD absorbed that with the barest of nods. His entire personal history was tumbling like a cypher machine; rearranging the solid facts he had known a day ago into questions he could barely formulate. The universe was expanding faster than JD could keep up, he felt breathless and utterly alone. That thought had barely formed before the image of his mother lost and alone in a strange world lanced through the chaos in his head like a bolt. “She must have been terrified,” he said, looking up at the still hovering Buck.

“Sounds like she was a tough lady,” Buck said gently.

“Yeah. Tougher than I knew.” JD looked away, eyes glittering with suspicious brightness. “She used to have all of these rules, for safety. I’d get so frustrated with her.” A deep pang of guilt thrummed in his chest. “I didn’t understand why. I didn’t know that this,” he made a helpless gesture, “this is what she was scared of. Of ending up in a place like this.”

Buck winced. “She never told you why?” he asked, reading the kid’s expression correctly. 

JD shook his head. When he spoke, his voice was hushed and small. “She used to tell me these fantastic stories about space and adventure. Maybe she was telling me about her life.” He wrapped his arms around his torso, grateful for the engulfing warmth of the borrowed sweatshirt. 

“I spent my entire life thinking my mother was,” the words pained him, “crazy. We moved seventeen times before I turned ten. I never attended a single day of school. Hell, I don’t even have a birth certificate. I thought it was because she was paranoid. She was just scared of getting dissected in a lab.”

“Ah hell, kid,” Buck sighed. He squeezed JD’s shoulder and held tight, relaying comfort through the pressure. “She was protecting you.”

JD felt a little hysterical. “Of course. ‘Cause I’m a – I don’t even know what the fuck I am.” He laughed a harsh barking sound. “And I’ve already been strapped to an exam table, so that’s out of the way.”

“You weren’t quite dissected,” Chris pointed out, his lip quirking into the barest hint of a smile. JD found himself absurdly calmed by the almost-expression. “You’re half human, half Litaskian – whatever that is. According to their record of marriage, your mother was from earth. She really was from Boston, though we’re not sure when. She ever talk about your dad?”

“Not a lot. I think it made her too sad. I know he was in the navy.” His face creased into a wry grin. “I assumed that meant on the ocean.” He hesitated a moment and added, “I feel like that should have been a safe assumption.”

Buck laughed loudly and JD thought he’d never heard a more comfortable sound. “First thing you gotta learn around here is there’s no such thing.”

JD couldn’t fight the grin that Buck’s friendly tone teased forth. He could genuinely like the other man given half a chance. He sobered abruptly, ducking his face to hide behind his bangs. “Am I gonna be around long enough to need to know that?”

It was Chris who answered, “Would you like to?”

Curiosity snapped JD’s head back up. “What’s that mean?”

“It’s an offer of sorts.” Chris glanced at his watch. “Director Travis is on his way here to meet you. The board will ultimately make the decision about what to do with you, but Judge Travis’s opinion holds a lot of sway. I’m going to ask him to keep you here as part of my team.”

JD’s stomach knotted, he thought back over the options Nathan had named earlier. Going back to his life didn’t seem to be even a faint possibility anymore. He ached for the loss of the life he’d known and feared the future yawning uncertainly before him. No matter how kindly he had been treated; the memory of heavy cuffs binding him to an examination table hadn’t faded one whit. “What happens if he says no?” he asked, hating how small his voice sounded. 

“He won’t,” Buck said, with a confidence that JD didn’t see reflected in his eyes.

Chris stood up abruptly, the motion serving as more of an outlet than conscious action. “He’ll be here soon. I’ll go meet him,” he said decisively. “Buck, get JD ready to meet the judge.” With that command he strode from the room.

JD gulped hard against thrumming nerves and wished Chris’s parting words had sounded a little less ominous. 

 


	12. Chapter 12

Ezra leaned against the wall near the single elevator in the underground garage, feigning nonchalance. The stale air was cold enough to make Ezra shiver, despite his jacket. Or maybe it was the sensation that his life was poised on the precipice of crashing spectacularly down around his ears. If he were lucky, maybe this time he could arrange to be crushed by the falling debris.

The studied pose helped settle his mask into place, covering the familiar tingle of excitement he always felt just as the curtain came up on a new game. Ezra brushed an invisible piece of lint from the sleeve of his immaculate jacket and waited as Director Travis’s understated town car drove past and pulled smoothly into the reserved parking stall.

He waited until Travis’s echoing strides carried him beyond Ezra’s vantage point to make himself known. “Judge Travis,” he said, stepping from the shadows, “a word?”

“Mr. Standish,” Travis didn’t sound startled at the greeting. His voice held the commanding and knowing timbre that it inevitably did. In Ezra’s experience it did not matter what one had done or even thought of doing; Orin Travis always sounded as though he not only knew, but had thought of it first. “You know, I honestly expected it would be Dr. Jackson waiting to ambush me. On reflection, I should have known better.”

“Dr. Jackson is otherwise engaged at the moment,” Ezra said, with a winning smile. “Hopefully, I will be as persuasive in his stead.”

Travis harrumphed and reached out to press the elevator call button. When Ezra didn’t start pitching his case right away, the Judge gave him a steady look and said, “Well?”

“I’d like to speak to you about the young man that was brought in last night.” 

“Yes, I rather thought you might.” Travis’s eye contact didn’t waiver.

Ezra had to give the old lawman credit; there were not many people who knew what Ezra was who would meet his gaze unflinchingly. Travis stared at him so implacably, that Ezra felt as though he were the one staring down an empath. “Mr. Larabee is going to ask you to make a decision about Mr. Dunne. I support his recommendation. However, I wish to discuss what will become of the boy if you reject his appeal.”

The elevator arrived with a subdued chime and parting doors, but Travis made no effort to board it. “I’m listening.”

“The boy is dangerous,” Ezra stated plainly. It was a risky opening gambit, but there really was no way around that. Better to state the fact plainly and move on. “In the wrong hands, there’s no telling the damage he could inflict.”

Ezra read the surprised interest in Travis’s eyes; he had the man’s attention. 

“And in the right hands?”

“That remains to be seen,” Ezra acknowledged. He forced down the instinctive reach toward his power. Orin Travis’s natural mental shields weren’t impenetrable; but breaking through would cost Ezra dearly and the effort would only sabotage his purpose in seeking out the judge. He dropped the sparking flare and turned the conversation toward the reason they were having this discussion in the parking garage and not in the offices. “If you reject Mr. Larabee’s request, allow me to tell you what it will take to contain the boy.” 

The raw emotion in his voice surprised Ezra, but he seized it and turned it into a weapon. “Mr. Dunne is a technopath – he has an affinity for machines and they return the affection. I don’t know the range of his influence, but from what we’ve observed today, I believe it to be extensive. If you are going to effectively neutralize him, you will require an exceptionally remote site. A stray wireless signal or passerby with a smartphone would compromise your security utterly. I’d recommend you find a temperate climate, or tell your guards to practice chopping firewood. Anything electronic or computerized will be untrustworthy at best, a weapon at worst.”

“The young man in our custody has a vibrant and curious mind. I’ve glimpsed into it twice over and found no darker purpose. In order to neutralize him, you will have to isolate him and excise every single thing that gives him identity. You will destroy a gentle soul and create an enemy where there need not have been one. I know what that experience will do to him.” 

“It would be kinder to kill him outright.” Ezra felt naked and helpless to stop the words pouring from his mouth. He deliberately dropped his shields and returned the judge’s gaze baldly. If Travis inadvertently saw that the same held true for Ezra, so be it. 

Judge Travis broke the spell first; he reached out and pressed the call button again. He looked away, not in discomfort, but as an act of kindness to give Ezra the necessary time to regroup. Ezra wanted to reject the gesture and despise the judge for seeing his vulnerability, but he found his emotions exhausted.

 

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

 

Chris made it approximately three steps down the hallway before Josiah tucked in beside him. 

“Nettie thinks she’s talked some sense into Casey,” he said by way of greeting. “Though she’s keeping Casey isolated until our guest has been sorted.”

Chris snorted at that. Casey’s adoptive aunt was a force of nature. He made a mental note to send Vin down to talk Nettie around if Travis let him keep JD. 

“No lasting damage then?” Chris asked.

Josiah shrugged. “He exploited a weakness in the firewall that was easily fixed once Nettie was looking for it. Other than that, there’s no trace of any corrupted code. It’s like Casey just went moony over him.”

“That fits with what Ezra said.” Chris was thoughtful. “You think we can trust him?”

“Can’t know until we do,” Josiah answered. “For what it’s worth, I went through everything he valued enough to take with him when he ran. I think he’s a lonely kid.”

Chris nodded. “Some common ground there.”

“Indeed,” Josiah agreed; his voice warm with amusement. 

“Could be trouble if I’m wrong.”

“One thing we never seem to run short on is trouble.”

Chris glanced side-long at Josiah, who stared straight ahead placidly. “You can really be less than helpful sometimes, you know that?”

Josiah’s answering chuckle was infectious and Chris felt his lingering concerns ease. 

“Hey, I was just coming to find you,” Nathan said, as he and Vin exited the elevator. He gestured with the tablet in his hand. “We just finished up and all of Vin’s tests match his last physical.”

“Not all of them,” Vin piped up.

Nathan rolled his eyes in annoyance. “Alright, they nearly matched. Close enough to prove the equipment is working when it comes to anyone but the kid.”

Chris looked between Vin and Nathan, confused.

“Nate’s just mad ‘cos my cholesterol numbers are better.”

“It’s not like you deserve any improvement the way you eat.” Nathan allowed himself to be drawn into the familiar squabble.

Vin was half a second from pulling a face, when Chris brought them back to the matter at hand. “So once we removed JD from the equation, the machines returned to normal?” He stoically ignored Josiah’s blatant amusement at the use of JD’s given name. It seemed Buck wasn’t the only one who’d named the puppy. 

Nathan nodded. “Looks like. I relabeled one of the vials of blood I took from the kid and reran it. The results are still compiling, but this time it definitely popped as non-human.”

“That tracks with what we’re experiencing in the other systems,” Chris said thoughtfully. 

“I’d be interested in seeing what the duration of his influence is,” Josiah said, “and his range. Assuming, of course, that we get to keep him.” The scientist was lost to them then, mind already spinning with visions of experiments to test Dunne’s abilities. Chris would have to sic Buck or Vin on the man to keep things to a manageable level. No sense in saving the kid from The Attic, only to traumatize him themselves, no matter how well intentioned.

The elevator door chimed softly, an entirely inadequate sound to herald the arrival of Judge Travis. It wasn’t a surprise to see Ezra lurking a half-step behind Travis, though the raw expression on the normally composed man’s face was. Chris shot him a quizzical glance as he stepped forward and extended his hand to Travis in greeting. “Judge, thanks for coming down.”

The director took the offered hand and shook it firmly. His assessing gaze took in the rest of the gathered men. “Mr. Larabee. And here’s the rest of the reception committee.” He crossed his arms and settled back on his heels. “Alright, gentlemen, let me hear your sales pitch.”

Chris had the distinct feeling they were being gently mocked. At the expectant looks from the others, he sighed. “You know what I want; and I expect you’ve heard from Ezra. Nathan, Vin – you both spent time with JD, how do you feel about adding him to our team?”

There was an awkward pause as Vin and Nathan found themselves put on the spot. Nathan piped up first. “He’s potentially a tremendous asset. We haven’t explored the extent of his capabilities, but we have some prior success with utilizing individuals of unique origin.”

The look Vin shot Nathan was the expressive equivalent of an elbow to the ribs. Nathan cocked a shoulder back; silently asking if Vin had any better ideas. 

“’Unique origins’ is one way to put it, Dr. Jackson. As for his abilities, correct me if I’m wrong, but are they not just as potentially destructive as they are beneficial?” 

“Doesn’t that go for all of us?” Chris answered for Nathan. “You’ve taken a chance on every man here.”

Vin watched Ezra with careful glances, trying to gauge how the conversation was affecting the Savnahan. He’d caught the shuttered expression in the normally lively eyes.

“Not every man here can dismantle our security system without breaking a sweat,” Judge Travis said.

Vin opened his mouth to argue that point, but closed it again at a subtle head shake from Chris.

“If I understood Mr. Standish’s report from this morning, the young man himself is unaware of his abilities,” Travis continued, ignoring the silent byplay. “You’re proposing that we not only train him to use these potentially devastating talents, but also give him the other attendant skills that being a marshal would entail. What keeps him from using all of that against us?”

“The same thing that keeps any of us from doing so,” Ezra cut in, striding away from the elevator doors to join his teammates in facing the judge. “Nothing. You can pin him down with terms of parole and threaten him with a life of unendurable misery; but that won’t keep him loyal. If he sets his mind to it, he will find a way to break whatever leash you bind him with.” His voice rang with absolute truth. “What you can offer him is something to belong to. Give him people. He is a scared child, who has had his world turned utterly inside out. His mother – the only constant in his life – is gone and, thanks to us, newly a stranger. Create something for him to be loyal to.”

His chest ached with the words; the manipulation bitter on his tongue. It would work, and Ezra should know. He had shared JD’s position beneath the Sword of Damocles; had bucked and brindled at the constraints imposed. The terms of his parole and the heavy suspicion he’d been subjected to had done nothing to prevent Ezra from finding the stress points where he could insert his claws and shred the agency from within. It was not fear that held his fury; it was the five men he’d found himself bonding to despite his best intentions. He wouldn’t go so far as to refer to them as family – he liked them far too much for that; but he did think of them as what he stood to lose by lashing out.

A warm hand on his arm pulled Ezra back from his dark musings. He gave Vin a grateful half-smile. 

“Just meet him, Judge,” Vin pled, targeting Judge Travis’s emotions since Nathan and Ezra had logic covered. “You can’t condemn him without at least looking him in the eye.”

Travis held up his hand, cutting off any further entreaties. “The petitions have been heard, the case is being considered. Now, will someone please take me to the source of all this commotion?”

Chris led the way to the library; Judge Travis occasionally flicking amused looks over his shoulder at the unsubtle hovering of the other four marshals.


	13. Chapter 13

When the door to the library opened, Buck and JD stood, moving in concert as though they’d planned the movement. JD felt his nerves coil in anticipation. An older gentleman, stern faced and imposing entered. JD felt the weight of his gaze like a physical touch.

“Mr. Wilmington,” the man who could only be Judge Travis said in greeting.

“Judge.” Buck radiated nervousness like he was the one facing inquisition, the heavy energy seeped into JD. “Uh, Director Orin Travis, JD Dunne.” Buck’s introductions were stiffly formal. “JD, Judge Travis.”

“Sir,” JD said, presenting his hand as politely as he could manage.

Judge Travis studied him for a long second before completing the proffered gesture. His handshake was dry and firm and solid; JD prayed that his own measured up. “Well,” Travis said, releasing JD’s hand, “Mr. Wilmington you may go.”

Buck excused himself; flicking a final warm glance to JD that he suspected was supposed to convey comfort and calm. JD felt neither.

“You’ve caused quite the commotion, Mr. Dunne,” Travis said, his tone unreadable.

“Yessir,” JD acknowledged. “Not intentionally, sir.” His leg jittered and he pressed his clenched fist against his thigh to still the nervous motion.

Travis indicated for JD to sit. “Tell me about yourself,” he said, not unkindly, but with such steady scrutiny that JD felt that Travis could see through JD’s skin to read the chapter and verse of his character written on his bones.

JD perched on the edge of the chair, fairly vibrating with the need to pace about the room. “Apparently I’m an alien,” he said, and immediately wanted to slap a hand over his mouth. “Which was news to me.” He didn’t intend the words flippantly; but he wasn’t sure there was a way to make them sound sober. His leg bounced.

“That’s what they tell me.” Travis said, unruffled. “How do you feel about that?"

JD ducked his head and scrubbed a hand through the hair at the nape of his neck. “I think I’m still in shock.” He glanced up at Travis and shrugged. 

“It’s just,” he grimaced, trying to think of the right words. “Yesterday there were all of these things about my life that I knew; that today I suddenly don’t have the first clue about. I knew that my mother was from Boston – which turns out, is one of the few things that’s actually true; just not any Boston that I would recognize. I knew that my father was human,” JD could hear hysterical laughter crowding at the edges of his voice, “ – that would be one of the things that’s apparently not true. I knew that my mother was eccentric, that my childhood was atypical. I thought it was because she was… unwell. Stranded time-traveler is going to take some getting used to.” 

Travis nodded, phlegmatic. “Fair enough. I expect that would make for a difficult day. That still leaves us with the question of what to do with you.”

JD froze, his heart pounding violently in his throat.

“Mr. Larabee,” The Judge continued, without acknowledging JD’s distress, “has asked that we take you on; assigned to his team, under his supervision. Did he discuss that with you?”

JD’s head jerked in a nervous approximation of a nod. 

“You know what we do here?” Travis asked.

“I think so. You police a damaged point in time and space. Mr. Larabee described it like living on the edge of a whirlpool and dealing with debris that washes up,” JD said, marveling again at just how sideways the world had slipped.

Travis smiled at his description. “That’s a fair analogy,” he said, “but it’s slightly more complicated than that. This agency ostensibly operates under the umbrella of the US Marshal Service. You met our incursion team last night. Their primary mission is to find and evaluate persons and items that arrive via the anomaly. Once an individual is deemed to be an acceptable risk, custody is referred to our rehoming division to establish residency and integration as much as possible. We do have some remote colonies set aside for those unable to pass for human. Artifacts are turned over to our technical division for study and archiving.”

“What about things that fall outside your acceptable risk matrix?” JD challenged without a trace of his previous deferential nervousness.

To his credit, Travis didn’t try to dissemble. His reply was very matter-of-fact. “It does happen on occasion that it is necessary to house individuals in a secure facility rather than place them within the general populace. It’s unfortunate, and we endeavor to avoid it.”

“You endeavor to avoid it?” JD echoed, taken aback. “That is the plan for me though, isn’t it? If Mr. Larabee doesn’t get his way? That’s why we’re having this conversation – to determine if I can be blackmailed into working for you; or if I’m gonna be shipped off to The Attic.”

“I’ve never cared for that name,” Travis said, sounding effected for the first time in their conversation. “The Attic, as though we were packing away winter coats.” He scoffed softly. “It’s our main, secure housing facility. You would require something a little more specialized.”

“Specialized? Yeah, that’s not ominous.” JD hung his head, fingers twisting through his hair absently. “So we’re back to blackmail. How could you possibly hope to trust me if I’m not here of my own free will?”

“Well, I hope that’s a matter you and I can resolve between us today. If I don’t feel that I can trust you, I don’t have a choice.” His voice softened, “It’s not blackmail, son, it’s an offer – one that you can reject. I can promise that no matter how this plays out you’ll not be ill-treated and your lodgings will be comfortable; but either way you are going to have to adjust to a certain level of restriction in the immediate future.”

“Why? I am no threat to Earth.”

Travis laughed softly, and JD bristled though there was no meanness to the sound. “I very much wish that were true.”

“I’ve been running around on my own for eighteen years,” JD snarked, forgetting in the moment that he needed the man’s approval, “haven’t messed the place up yet.”

“Well, as I understand it,” Travis said, appeasing, “you were ignorant of your origins. That’s changed and I don’t have the luxury to pretend like we don’t know who and what you are.”

JD shrugged. “It hasn’t really changed. I still don’t know what any of this means.”

“Work with our team and you’ll have time to figure it out.” The offer was remarkably quiet for a decision that ensnared his entire future. “We have reached successful agreements with others in similar circumstances.”

“You mean your, uh,” JD tapped his temple with two fingers, “your mind reader?”

“Mr. Standish, yes.”

“And he likes working for you?”

“He hasn’t attempted to break his parole,” Travis answered, neatly evading the question. 

“That’s not the same thing as being happy,” JD pointed out. “Parole indicates there’s an end date in sight. How long?”

Travis gave him a smile tinged with sadness. “Unfortunately, I can’t answer that.”

“So, my choices are indentured servitude; or a life sentence for the crime of being born? To be served in ‘comfortable lodgings,’” he tossed Travis’s words back at him with a bite.

“I didn’t say they were pleasant choices,” Travis countered, refusing to be baited.

“I’d be working with Buck?” JD asked, voice softening, “For Mr. Larabee?”

“Among others. You’ve met most of the team, I believe. You should know they’ve campaigned for this opportunity. Their support is why you and I are having this conversation. They’re not easily impressed, but they see something in you. I’d like to know what.”

“Huh.” JD was bemused by that information. “I can’t do indefinitely.”

“Indefinitely is what I can offer. However, perhaps we can devise a system of review and expand your liberties once certain benchmarks are achieved.”

“What sort of benchmarks?” JD asked, seizing the slim branch of hope that Travis dangled before him.

“We’ll sort that out later,” Travis said, “assuming of course, that you chose Mr. Larabee; and I do recommend that you chose Mr. Larabee.”

JD’s mind raced, though he knew in his bones that there was only one choice. He took a long moment, as much to gather himself as to consider his answer. “If I agree, I’ll be allowed to research my heritage?”

Travis’s smile was open and warm now. “With some supervision, I believe that would be acceptable. Are you agreeing?”

JD nodded; his throat tight with sudden emotion. He didn’t understand how he could feel trapped and hopeful in the same instant. “I am,” he said at last, forcing the words past the restricting ache. 

 

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

 

“Mr. Larabee,” Judge Travis sounded dryly amused – and not at all surprised – to find the members of his incursion containment team loitering in the hallway outside the library.

Chris managed to resist the urge to snap to attention and fire off a salute, but only just. “Judge?”

“I’ve given it my careful consideration, and having met the lad in person; I will support your request to the Board. I don’t foresee any problems. He’s yours. We’ll work up the same agreement that we have with Mr. Standish. If there’s nothing further, gentlemen?”

Buck whooped and seized Judge Travis’s hand in a wild clasp. “Thank you, Judge!” He vanished into the library with Vin and Nathan hot on his heels. 

Ezra met the Judge’s gaze steadily; silent conversation flowed between the two. After a long beat he dipped his head as though tipping an invisible hat. He ghosted toward the library, pausing to tug at Josiah’s arm. The scientist followed, bestowing his own beaming approval upon the Judge.

Chris looked fondly toward where his team had gone to greet their newest member; for all the uncertainties that surrounded the situation, it felt natural – pieces clicking into place with a subtle rightness. Chris had learned to listen to those intuitions over the years; he paid attention to what his instincts were telling him now. Besides, Buck had promised to feed and water the kid, walk him twice a day. 

He held out his hand for Travis. “Are we crazy,” he asked, not that the answer mattered.

Travis accepted the offered handshake and shrugged. “I’m fairly sure, son, that crazy is a relative state around here. I have a good feeling about this. Seven’s an auspicious number. And frankly, we need the help. Bring him to heel, Chris, get them ready.”

“I’d feel better about our chances if you’d let me tell them.” Chris scowled. Keeping secrets didn’t sit right. “They aren’t stupid, Judge. They spend as much time studying the anomalies as they do responding to them; one of them is bound to notice the pattern soon.”

“I need more time to bring the board around,” Travis said, reading Chris’s unhappiness loud and clear. “Let me sell them on Mr. Dunne first. They’re nervous; the theft from the Archives has them on edge. When they’ve settled, I’ll bring them around and you can read your team in.”

“They will go for it, won’t they?” Chris asked.

“I wouldn’t be so cruel as to get the lad’s hopes up,” Travis answered. “They’ll go for it. I’ll be in touch.”

Chris saw the Judge to the elevator and then returned to the library. He lingered in the doorway. Chris felt a burst of warmth as he watched the team he’d assembled enfold the newest waif dropped in their midst. Buck was telling an outlandish story, hands gesturing wildly; laughing voice filling the room with warmth. Occasionally, one of the others piped up when they felt history was being overly abused. JD drank it all in hungrily, an enrapt expression playing openly across his face. Ezra kicked in a comment too low for Chris to hear, but the group erupted in laughter. Buck took a playful jab at the Savnahan.

Ezra danced out of range, smirking widely at Buck who turned the swing into an improvised loose headlock around JD’s neck. It should have been an overly familiar action from a virtual stranger, but JD turned into it like a flower toward sunlight. Buck slid his arm around JD’s shoulder and steered him toward the doorway.

“Let me give you the tour, kid,” Buck said, with a warm nod for Chris as they passed him in the doorway. Chris leaned against the doorframe, blatantly eavesdropping as Buck merrily introduced JD to his new life. Chris was once again struck with a strong sense of rightness as he tracked the pair down the hallway.

… The Beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for taking the time to read my little AU. I have so many ideas for stories in this 'verse, so watch this space for sequels.  Though my writing pace does remain glacial.


End file.
